LIVERMORE — For months, Mayor John Marchand’s inbox brimmed with feisty e-mails from the parents of a local charter school who were furious over the city’s decision not to allow students to occupy a newly built high school facility in January because the company that runs the school had failed to build a nearby parking lot.

They called the mayor “outrageous,” “unethical” and “disgusting,” and accused him of putting his own agenda over the welfare of kids.

It now appears their anger was misplaced, as the CEO of the charter’s parent corporation admitted last week that he misled both the school’s board and parents when he claimed the city threw a last minute wrench into Livermore Valley Charter Preparatory’s plans to move into a new building off North Canyons Parkway near Doolan Road.

“I apologize to the mayor and to the city staff and to our parents,” said John Zukoski, CEO of Tri-Valley Learning Corp. “I don’t remember saying that, but it’s in writing. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Zukoski e-mailed a call to action on Dec. 12 to the school’s community, stating that “City Hall has unfathomably drawn out the plan approval process over the past six months by continually requesting minor changes here and there.”

His main beef was his contention that the city told the school at the last minute it had to build a parking lot for 70 spaces before occupying the facility.

Zukoski included in his message the e-mail addresses of council members and city staff and encouraged parents to lobby them to give the school a temporary occupancy permit.

Marchand appeared at the corporation’s board meeting on Thursday to counter Zukoski’s claims, stating that the CEO knew about the parking lot requirement in June and it was only delayed because the school had failed to provide necessary soil reports.

The mayor told the board that the city would not consider a temporary occupancy permit because the lack of a parking lot was a safety issue.

A day later, Zukoski acknowledged the mayor’s version of events were accurate in an apology he issued, but it did little to stem Marchand’s frustration.

“He admits that he lied to the parents, the students and his fellow administrators and in doing so he was willing to put the lives of the students at risk,” Marchand said.”If I was a charter school parent, that would be unforgivable.”

Zukoski denied that he intentionally provided the misinformation.

The incident is not the first time the corporation has been in the limelight.

It is in an ongoing dispute with the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District about whether its foreign exchange program, which charges international students about $15,000 per semester, is legal.

Zukoski has said the program is recognized under federal law, while the district has disputed whether that would trump state education code.

In a video clip recorded by a student, a psychology instructor at Orange Coast College told her class that the election of Donald Trump was “an act of terrorism” – prompting an official complaint from the school’s Republican Club.

Homegrown tech entrepeneurs and educators from West Contra Costa County participate in an Hour of Code event Wednesday at the Richmond Police Activities League aimed at getting more African-Americans, Latinos and minorities into the tech field, as part of Computer Science Education Week, from Dec. 5 to 11.